Mobile Spaceship Zaha Hadid deserves people’s respect. The London Aquatic Center, which can accommodate 17,500 spectators, uses plain fair-faced concrete as the main body of the building. Six streamlined diving boards are like tongues, protruding from the end of the waterway. The ceiling undulates like waves - a sloping facade. , full arc, very standard Zaha Hadid design, it is not just an ordinary competition venue, it is a space capsule from the future.

At the end of July, Zaha Hadid gracefully accompanied Queen Elizabeth II to open the Olympic Games and was awarded the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. Zaha Hadid should have mixed feelings, right? As a woman, an Iraqi descendant who is not a British native, she finally has her own work in London, where she has lived for 40 years.

“I always joke, if I hadn’t been an architect, I would have probably been a singer! In college I sang and sang non-stop every day – especially rhythm and blues,” Zaha Hadi Recalling the past, Germany finally showed a smile, "Everyone thought I was crazy!" In 1950, Zaha Hadid was born in Baghdad, the capital of Iraq, into a liberal political family. When she grew up, she went to university in Lebanon, but she majored in mathematics instead of architecture.

“But I have determined to be an architect as early as 11 years old!” At that time, her father took her to travel to Sumer in southern Iraq, which is the birthplace of Middle Eastern civilization. First, the history of the city's construction can be traced back to 4500 BC.

“We rode the boat forward in the swamp, then changed to a smaller, thatched boat, and visited the tribes one after another. That scenery is still imprinted in my mind. I have always Thinking, I want to build a city like this and create buildings that shine like jewels.”

For Zaha Hadid, AA Architectural Alliance School. It is the best place to start. It is the center of architectural experimentation in the world. Some of the most famous architects in the industry today are from this school. In 1972, she moved to the UK and entered the AA School of Architecture. Successfully, she obtained a master's degree in 1997. She then joined the Metropolitan Architecture Office chaired by her supervisor and continued to teach at AA School of Architecture and other first-class schools.

If she had not set up her own business in 1980, Zaha Hadid would have stayed in academia safely, right? "No! I don't have the patience, and I don't do things smoothly enough," she joked. "People say that sometimes I am terrible." Two years after opening, Zaha Hadid won the international competition for Hong Kong's "Peak" club. She won the first prize in the picture, which made her famous all over the world.

Since then, her works have often been selected for international architectural competitions, and winning awards is a common occurrence, which seems to be smooth sailing. In the early days of becoming an architect, another architectural master, Tadao Ando, ??failed miserably in all the competitions he proposed! However, apart from a bunch of award-winning design drawings, there are only a handful of physical buildings (because this also involves issues such as funding, construction methods, etc.), and her peers mockingly called her a "paper architect."

“Some people criticize me for talking on paper, as if I don’t know how to build a house. Maybe I have thought about giving up, but I will never do so. Every failure is my motivation to move forward.”< /p>

Fortunately, she soon got an opportunity to get rid of her notoriety: Vitra, which is famous for making furniture and chairs, approached Zaha Hadid and asked her to build a factory. A fire station.

Future Dreamer

In 1993, when the fire station was completed, Zaha Hadid made every wall full of personality float and topple in an attitude of defying gravity. Or woven together like an impact. Only then did the world realize that those weird and experimental paper buildings could really appear in the real world.

In 2004, Zaha Hadid won the Pritzker Architecture Prize. The Pritzker Architecture Prize is known as the "Nobel Prize in Architecture" and is the highest honor for architects. Zaha Hadid's winning of the award has even more transcendental significance: she is the first woman to win the award in the 25 years since its inception, and she is also the youngest winner. In 2010, Zaha Hadid was listed among the 100 most influential people selected by Time magazine.

Jorge Silvetti, professor of architecture at Harvard University, commented on Zaha Hadid: “Her unique treatment and use of walls, floors and roofs, those transparent, woven, and flowing spatial designs, Living proof that architecture, as an art, requires only imagination.”

“I myself don’t know what the next building will look like, what is possible, what is possible. It’s impossible.” Zaha Hadid said: “In 1995, Christo Jaracheff wrapped the Berlin Parliament in plastic sheets. I also went to visit and saw millions of people coming, and everyone gathered together to sing and dance. I think before this, people should not believe that surreal imagination can actually be realized."

(Editor/Tang Xin)

Memorial Events

Born in 1950 in Baghdad, Iraq.

In 1977, he obtained a master's degree from the London AA School of Architecture.

In 1980, he established his own architect firm.

In 1982, he won the first prize in the Hong Kong "Feng" Club Picture Competition.

In 1993, the vitra fire station in Germany was completed.

In 2003, the Guggenheim Museum designed for Taichung was difficult to produce.

Won the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2004.

In 2012, the London Aquatic Center was completed.